View full sizeBenjamin Brink/The OregonianWorkers lift a studio apartment into place at Kah San Chako Haws, an affordable housing project in Southeast Portland. The apartment building was manufactured in modules for final assembly, reducing its construction cost and timeline.

Stuart Emmons and Rey España think they're on to something, and they were almost giddy to show it off Wednesday.

"This is affordable housing," said España, a director at the Native American Youth and Family Center, emphasizing the first word as he walked into a unit in the organization's Southeast Portland unfinished apartment building.

Two days earlier, the site had nothing to show but dirt and three foundations. By the end of the day Wednesday, there were nine apartment units, built in modules in Aumsville before being trucked to Portland and stacked like Lego bricks into three buildings.

It's the first modular multifamily affordable apartment project in the Northwest -- a conditional honor, to be sure, but Emmons thinks the project could be a cheaper and quicker model for affordable housing.

Affordable housing, he says, has become too expensive on a per-unit basis. And as demand for affordable housing has grown, funding has grown scarcer and new construction isn't keeping up.

"It's just taking too long," Emmons said. "We're not building it fast enough."

View full sizeStuart EmmonsKah San Chako Haws, which is Chinook for East House, is the first new affordable housing project undertaken by the Native American Youth and Family Center.

Modular construction aims to lower the per-unit cost by making the projects replicable -- reducing design expenses -- while lowering the cost of production and shortening the construction timeline.

A conventional project would take as long as 18 months to complete, from design to occupancy. The new building -- called Kah San Chako Haws, or "East House" in Chinook -- took 13 months, including four months of design and five months of construction.

Most of the construction took place in a Blazer Industries Inc. warehouse in Aumsville, southeast of Salem. The modules were taken by truck, with finishes and appliances already inside, to the corner of Southeast 97th Avenue and Holgate Boulevard to be lifted into place, piece by piece, by crane.

Over the next 10 weeks, workers will add stairs, roofing and siding. Next time, Emmons hopes the siding can be installed in the factory before shipping, shaving off a few more days of on-site work.

The efficiency would grow as the project is replicated elsewhere. The Kah San Chako Haws pilot project cost about $1.7 million, or just under $190,000 per unit. But Emmons figures future projects could reduce costs to less than $150,000 per unit.

"I hope to put one there," he said, pointing to homes for sale across the street from Kah San Chako Haws. "And maybe there."

A national trend

Affordable housing organizations across the country have been looking for cheaper, more efficient ways to meet growing demand.

In Seattle, the affordable housing nonprofit Common Ground released a study this month examining the potential of housing strategies including modular housing, micro-apartments and even affordable housing built from surplus shipping containers.

The group wrote that modular housing "offers interesting possibilities for some affordable housing construction" because of the lower costs, scalability and speed of construction.

"We're going to go from a lot to completion in less than six months," España said. "That timing is unheard of."

Potential obstacles would include coming up with new construction processes, as well as potential opposition to such projects from neighbors.

But Blazer -- which has built portable classrooms for schools, modular stores, single-family homes and an assisted living facility -- says that while multifamily construction is somewhat unfamiliar territory, it's doable.

"We can do a lot of different things people don't think you can do modular," said David Girard of Blazer.

Energy efficient, too

And the project is shooting for a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Gold rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. Next time, they'll be going for LEED Platinum.

"We've found this is even higher quality than stick-built, because it's manufactured in a controlled environment," Emmons said. "Modular doesn't need to be chintzy."

The three-building complex includes three each of two- and one-bedroom and studio apartments. NAYA says it hopes the residents will be a mix of elders, small families and young adults just aging out of foster care.

"We hope to establish a new standard for what affordable housing should be," España said. "This is the type of housing we want to promote. This is how people can live with respect and dignity."